Elizabeth Chambliss
Professor of Law
Co-Director, Center for Professional
    Values and Practice

Elizabeth Chambliss specializes in the empirical study of the U.S. legal profession, focusing on the regulation of lawyers and the dynamics of lawyers’ careers.

Her research examines the role of ethics advisors, general counsel, and other compliance specialists in large law firms, and the implications of this emerging role for the regulation of lawyers more generally. She also serves as the reporter for the American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, which issues periodic reports about the status of minorities in the legal profession.

Professor Chambliss received her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, where she also earned a Ph.D. in sociology. Interested in the empirical study of law from the start, she chose Wisconsin because it was a pioneer of legal realism in the 1930s and is still known for studying law within the context of a social system. While at Wisconsin, she served as the assistant director of the Institute for Legal Studies, a research center within the law school that encourages the study of law in action.

Professor Chambliss comes to New York Law School from a four-year stint as the research director of the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she designed and conducted research on the changing structure of law firms and the challenges such changes pose for professional regulation. She also conducted a comprehensive survey of the careers of black Harvard Law School alumni, which documents the struggles and achievements of over 650 of the nation’s leading black lawyers. In addition to her research activities, she helped to develop new courses on the history and structure of the profession and the current conditions of practice in a variety of legal settings.

Before working at Harvard, Professor Chambliss taught law at the University of Texas and the University of Denver. She was attracted to New York Law School because of the law school’s commitment to teaching and research on the profession and the strength of its Center for Professional Values and Practice.

“I’m very excited to be part of the Center,” explains Professor Chambliss. “The American legal profession is undergoing profound changes that will significantly affect the careers of this generation of lawyers. The organizational settings in which lawyers practice are becoming increasingly complex, as is the regulation of lawyers. In addition, lawyers increasingly are working in multi-professional environments in both corporations and government. My goal is to bring an appreciation of these changing conditions to the study of legal ethics and other forms of professional regulation, so that students will be prepared for the actual circumstances in which they will work. The Center provides a uniquely supportive context for this effort.”

Contact information:
T:  212-431-2126
F:  212-431-1830
E:  echambliss@nyls.edu
O:  B403
Assistant: Krysta Murray
T:  212-431-2306
E:  kmurray@nyls.edu
O: B409

Education: College of Charleston, B.S. 1983 magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.S. 1984, J.D. 1988 cum laude, Order of the Coif, Ph.D. 1992


Courses:
Law Firms
Lawyers and Public Life
Legal Profession
Property 


At New York Law School since 2004.